Ukraine War Live Updates: Finland Set To Formally Join NATO Today
Finland is set to formally become a member of the NATO defence alliance on Tuesday, ending years of “military non-alignment.”
Finland’s historic decision to apply to NATO prompted by its neighbour Russia’s war against Ukraine is one of the biggest geopolitical changes in Europe to come about as a direct consequence of the war.
On Tuesday, the country’s President Sauli Niinisto will travel to the NATO headquarters in Brussels for the accession.
Turkey, the last holdout on Helsinki’s accession to the military coalition, gave its approval on Finland’s membership bid on March 30. Sweden’s membership bid, made at the same time as Finland’s, is still awaiting approval.
Meanwhile, the husband of a woman Russian authorities have accused of assassinating pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky said Monday he believes his wife has been framed.
Russian investigators detained Daria Trepova on Monday, accusing her of carrying a hollow bust containing a bomb into a cafe in St. Petersburg where she presented it to Tatarsky before it exploded, killing the prominent pro-Kremlin figure and injuring at least 30 others.
Trepova’s husband Dmitry Rylov said Monday he believes his wife was being framed and “did not completely understand the purpose” of the bust that she had presented to Tatarsky.
“I think my wife was framed,” he told STV News according to an NBC translation. “I’m pretty sure she would never have been able to do something like that by her own will. Yes, Daria and I really do not support the war in Ukraine, but we believe that such actions are unacceptable. I am absolutely sure that she would never have agreed to such a thing if she had known.”
Russia released a video of Trepova on Monday, possibly recorded under duress, in which she admitted taking the statuette into the cafe, but refused to say who gave it to her to do so.
″[Daria] believed that [the bust] was needed for something else,” Rylov said amid suggestions she may have thought it was intended as a listening device. some secretive things that would remain unnoticed, perhaps always,” he added.
Tatarsky’s death has caused a stir among pro-war commentators in Russia, although analysts at the Institute for the Study of War noted there hadn’t been a uniform response both to the death and the authorities’ response.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Tatarsky with the Order of Courage “for courage and bravery in doing his professional duty” as a “war correspondent.”
